Opportunities Lost
by Lou Don
Summary: What if the exaggerated tales of drunken fools determined your existence? A short story of one particularly uncomfortable encounter, necromancy, and unsung heroes.


"The great age of heroes," he heard someone call it. Dobbs grunted in much the same manner he would were he attempting to pass a melon. What was so great about it? The war had ravaged the land for as long as he could remember. And heroes? Another uncomfortable grunt. Nothing but fortune seekers and fools these supposed heroes.

"Hail, barkeep!" one of the said fools bellowed to him from across the room. The boisterous tone of his voice only meant that he was about to buy a round of drinks for the lingering drunkards so that he could tell some grand, exaggerated story of conquest, vengeance, or some other such nonsense. "A round of drinks," he yelled, tickling Dobbs' gag reflex, "for I have just returned from the foreign shores of Kalimdor and am celebrating a triumphant victory over…"

One gains many interesting abilities running a tavern, not least of which is being able to tune out idiotic banter while appearing to be completely enthralled. No doubt he had rehearsed his tale several hundred times in his thick, plated skull, figuring out which words to emphasize, which to embellish. The scripted words vomiting from the braggart's mouth were replaced with the gentle gurgles of wooden mugs filling with expensive imported ale. Dobbs didn't need the extra copper but found quiet satisfaction relieving a fool's change purse of ill-earned spoils.

The elderly barkeep passed out the drinks without enthusiasm, artfully avoiding the storyteller's obvious attempts to draw him into the tale. It was well known that Dobbs' wife had been taken by the pestilence of the north, a disease thought to have been spread by the prince of the land, and many of the so-called heroes thought it necessary to boast of their victories against the prince's army of undead in misguided attempts to make the lonely tavern keeper feel better.

Shirking behind the counter Dobbs thoughtlessly began to organize whatever he could get his hands on. "It's a remarkable tale, isn't it?" said an uncomfortably sweet voice.

"Aye," the ragged barkeep breathed, failing entirely to conceal his lack of enthusiasm. "What can I…," he began, looking up at the bar and seeing no one.

"Get," he continued, shifting his eyes left to right and back again several times.

"You?" he finally finished, peering over the counter top. There he saw what appeared to be a pile of violet cloth. It shuffled up to a stool and rattled it a bit.

"I'm afraid you have nothing that could possibly quench my thirst," the pile said. "If you could manage some cheese, however, my appetite would be most grateful."

Though there was a grace to the object's speech its struggle to climb the stool was anything but poetic. Upon awkwardly reaching the top it stood and pulled back a hood, revealing a beautiful and deceptively aged face. He could see his bewilderment reflected in her massive gnomish eyes as she stared intently at him, almost expectedly.

"Ya-," he started off, "You're a long way from home, Miss." Barkeeps pride themselves on being able to maintain inoffensive, casual conversation with their patrons and Dobbs had blown it with his very first statement. It was his understanding that the gnomes were a displaced people having lost their ancestral home to invaders. It would be like if someone came up to him and said, "Hi, Dobbs! Wife still dead?"

"I could ask you the same thing," she said unfazed causing the veteran barkeep to pause for a slight moment. The gnome began searching through a satchel she wore about her waist, pulled out a small leather bag, and placed it on the counter. "Without the 'miss,' of course. Now, cheese?"

Staring at the bag and still considering her words he blurted out, "Cheese! O-of course, m'am."

Dobbs whisked into the back room with an unusual speed. There was an unsettling aura about this woman, one of urgency and doom. As he was preparing the plate he'd steal a glance at his mysterious patron who seemed to be amusing herself by making strange hand gestures at the drunken crowd in the dining area.

"Alterac's finest," he said, regaining a bit of composure as he set the plate of cheese upon the bar top.

"Splendid," she said excitedly as she spun back around. Carefully she removed one of her gloves and tore off a clump of cheese with her pudgy, bare fingers. The moment it touched her tiny lips an excruciatingly adorable expression seemed to explode across her face causing Dobbs' gut to twist with each bite. He focused his attention on the drunkard's story but found he couldn't quite understand what he was saying. It wasn't that he couldn't hear him, unfortunately, it was that his words seemed to be pure gibberish. His audience didn't really seem to mind but they were so drunk they could be set on fire and they probably wouldn't even notice.

"I could do that," the gnome said lightly in between bites.

"I'm sorry?" Dobbs asked, taken aback.

"I made a rather fortuitous discovery not long ago…in an unnamed town to the far north," she said, still politely stuffing her face.

"That's g-…"

"I'm sure it had a name once, I don't know. It didn't seem important. It had been razed, though, like most of the towns in that area," she continued, "except in this one the bodies had been untouched by the scourge."

"The plague?" Dobbs managed to interject.

The gnome let out a quiet, unsettling giggle. "Is there a difference?" she said with a smile. "Those who fall to the plague become the scourge. The undead, sir."  
"Marvelous invention, the undead," she said before Dobbs had an opportunity to react. "Resilient, strong, and obedient. Mostly obedient."

Dobbs had heard of the tales from the more boisterous patrons about legions of undead storming citadels and leveling towns. This wasn't like the war with the orcs, they were always quick to point out, for there was no pillaging, no prisoners...the undead would simply envelope their target and then it was theirs. It's not that he doubted such an unnatural terror just that through the years one tends to doubt the truthfulness of tales told by drunken idiots.

"You sound impressed, madam," he said with a little intended offense.

"I am," she came back quickly. She had finished the cheese and was licking her fingers to pick up any remaining crumbs. "Imagine," she said in between sticking fingers in her mouth, "imagine what a person could accomplish with an army of undead!"

The contrast between cute and sinister made it difficult for Dobbs to maintain his usual demure. There was something very wrong about this woman and the conversation had certainly taken a turn for the malevolent. The welling of terror in his chest told him to run away or at the very least call for help. He did neither and he wasn't entirely sure why.

"I made a rather fortuitous discovery," she said.

"S-so you said, Miss," Dobbs managed to say.

"I know. It's just that I've wanted to say that for so very long now. It has a proper sense of foreboding, doesn't it?"  
She burst into a fit of giggles which was maddening to Dobbs. "Run!" he thought. "Run as fast as you can." He did not.

"The bodies had been piled into what I assume was once a lake. Buried and forgotten."

Dobbs struggled to fight off the encroaching delirium. He discovered averting his eyes from the gnome helped immensely but he could not fully escape her presence.

"It took me days to unearth and reassemble all of the bodies. They were in rather immaculate condition all things considered. Hundreds of them. They must have died some time before the town was razed."

"That wasn't the worst of it, though," she continued. "It took weeks to draw the incantation and longer still to gather the necessary ingredients."

"Can you imagine," she asked, slowly squinting her eyes, "the smell? The unholy assault on the senses hundreds of rotting corpses emanate as they thaw? Some were still bloated with the most unnatural fumes. It was no easy task, let me assure you, nor was it simple to mask my discovery from prying eyes and noses. I lost several bodies to wolves and other creatures."

Her tone grew darker and shadows began to slowly envelope the room.

"When the time was right I began the ceremony. I tore the life from unworldly sources and gave it to each and every one of the dead in a very specific amount. Too much would destroy them and too little would render them unusable."

"By night's fall I had a battalion capable of taking back…taking _over_ any supposed stronghold. But there were still so many bodies left unused and my powers had yet to even peak."

"By midnight I had nearly doubled my army. I was exhausted and perhaps not as lucid as I should have been. In my zeal to create my army I overlooked some of the most basic rules of necromancy. Of course, I didn't realize this until it was too late."

It was now completely black in the tavern save for the moonlight that would occasionally be allowed in. All was silent, all was motionless, and Dobbs' head was filled with the visions of the gnome's tale.

"The force," Dobbs thought as he felt something strike him from behind, "caused me to temporarily lose control of my powers. I over infused the corpse before me and it exploded. The escaping energy quickly found hosts in the corpses on either side. They exploded."

Dobbs wanted to look away but the vision could not be avoided. Hundreds of decaying corpses exploding in unspeakable horror before and on to him. The smell of rotting flesh, festering liquids, and dark magics were overwhelming and there was nothing he could do. Disoriented and covered in bile, he barely managed to turn to see what had struck him.

"I was a fool," he thought. "This was a tremendous opportunity, one that won't easily be replicated, and I wasted it because of one lingering soul."

One of his risen undead, showing no recognizable emotion, was arching itself back up to strike again. He pulled a dagger out from somewhere and managed to slice off a few of its fingers before it too exploded. Then it all went black.

"It won't happen again," they said.

"Hail, barkeep! A round of drinks for I have just returned from the foreign shores of Kalimdor and am celebrating a triumphant victory over the prince's foul army! Ha!"

The bellowing startled Dobbs awake.

"Barkeep! Drinks!"

"A-…" he began to say, gathered himself, and began again. "Aye, sir. A-a moment."

He began filling mugs with whatever ale happened to be closest. As he set the first batch upon the bar top he noticed a small leather bag resting next to a clean plate. He looked around for a moment then quickly grabbed it. Opening it with caution he poured the contents onto the counter. They were bones…one of which had a ring seemingly grafted around it. A very familiar ring.

"Barkeep!" the braggart yelled again, "How long must you keep a hero waiting?!"

"You're right, sir," he said, placing the bones in his pocket. "I've kept a hero waiting far too long."

He walked right past his patrons, out the door, and onto a northern path.


End file.
